New Gallup Poll Says Americans Are Tuning TV News Out

According to a new Gallup poll measuring Americans’ confidence in television news, the level is the lowest since the poll was begun in 1993. 21% of adults expressed a great deal of confidence in television news reporting. No wonder CNN’s ratings are in the toilet.

Gallup tested 16 institutions, including newspapers, and TV news ranked 11th. Newspapers were ranked 10th. There was an interesting divide among those on the left; Democrats were the most confident in television news of all the groups surveyed (now there’s a shock) but postgraduates, who are more generally Democrats, had the least confidence in the TV news industry. This would tend to imply that well-educated people were more distrustful of what was spoon-fed them by the TV media, while those who were lower-income Democrats didn’t question the TV media’s bias toward the left.

A very important statistic showed that moderates were much less confident than they were in 2008, which could mean a great deal in the November election because if the moderates view the TV news with suspicion, they will be less likely to vote for Barack Obama.

As the reality of Barack Obama’s failed economy sinks in, more and more Americans are skeptical of the TV news departments that insist on painting a rosy picture that doesn’t match the bleak world of foreclosures, closed businesses, and radically high unemployment that’s out there. If the TV networks keep insisting on parroting the Democratic Party line, the day is not far off when they will have no one to preach to.